Jezebel (1938) is a romantic melodrama with views of early 1850s New
Orleans ante-bellum society. It was the first in a cycle of films with Dixie
backdrops that studied Southern chivalry and honor. The role of the title
character was offered as compensation to film star Bette Davis - her first
major film role - when she lost the opportunity to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone
With The Wind (1939), a characterization with a similar heroine. In
fact, the film has been called a black-and-white version of the famous Selznick
film that was in its pre-production stages.

Director William Wyler and Warner Bros' Studios brilliantly fashioned the
superb character study with superior production values. [Wyler also effectively
directed Davis as an icy woman in The Letter (1940)
and The Little Foxes (1941).] Davis plays the role of a spoiled, willful,
coquettish Southern belle who spitefully and stubbornly ruins her relationship
with leading men Henry Fonda and George Brent. She overcomes her own shallowness
and selfishness when Fonda becomes ill with yellow fever and she heroically
sacrifices herself to care for him. The film earned a total of five Academy
Award nominations with two major Oscar victories. Bette Davis won her second
(and last) Academy Award for her portrayal of the tempestuous, manipulative
Southern ante-bellum New Orleans belle for Warner Bros. [Davis would be nominated
eight more times, without an additional Oscar, until the time of her death
in 1989.] Co-star Fay Bainter also won the Best Supporting Actress Award
(in addition to being honored with an additional nomination as Best Actress
for her performance in White Banners.)
Other nominations were for Best Picture, Best Cinematography (Ernest Haller)
and Best Score (Max Steiner's noteworthy musical score).

The screenplay of the astute costume drama was written by Clements Ripley,
Abem Finkel, and aspiring screenwriter/director John Huston, and was based
on the play of the same name by Owen Davis, Sr. Neither Miriam Hopkins nor
Tallulah Bankhead, involved in the short-running, unsuccessful 1933 Broadway
stage play, were cast in the film's lead role.

The Story

After the film's credits that wash across a Southern plantation scene (the
title word Jezebel glistens), the film opens in New Orleans - 1852,
mixed with French, Creole, and Southern heritages. The camera pans along
a row of street vendors selling various masks and other merchandise. Southern
gentlemen Buck Cantrell (George Brent) and young Ted Dillard (Richard Cromwell)
are chauffeured to the St. Louis Hotel where they enter the Long Bar to
share drinks and conversation with other patrons. Cantrell has just lost "the
lady of his heart" - Julie Marsden (Bette Davis) - she is engaged to marry
Ted's brother Preston ("Pres") Dillard (Henry Fonda). They have an altercation
with Frenchman De Lautruc (George Renevant) over his impropriety of mentioning
Julie's name in the bar: "...a gentlemen doesn't mention a ladies' name
in a barroom," and a duel is proposed. Admiring Cantrell, Ted steps in
to defend the slight to Julie's reputation in the next day's challenge: "I
ought to get Lautruc myself. It's my brother that's gonna marry her. That
makes it much more my problem than yours. Let me act for ya, Buck?" But
Buck declines Ted's magnanimous offer.

An afternoon party is held at the family mansion of strong-willed Southern
belle Julie Marsden. Disdainful of punctuality, she is late to her own engagement
party. Aunt Belle Bogardus (Fay Bainter) is scandalized and embarrassed
by the predicament. But according to Julie's guardian General Theopholus
Bogardus (Henry O'Neill), Julie has always been rebelliously unconventional:

That girl was never on time for anything in her life.

In a scene that defines her inner nature, Julie makes a noisy
entrance on horseback along a cobble-stone entryway, riding side-saddle
with a long dress/riding habit and crop in hand. She barks to her young
slave Ti Bat (Stymie Beard) as he struggles to control the spirited horse
(the horse represents her own restless spirit): "Don't stand there with your eyes bulgin' out like that!
He knows you're scared." [In contrast, Bette Davis' own eyes bulge throughout
the film!] Without time to change into her party dress, she flamboyantly
strides into the reception room in her "horse clothes," cracking her whip
against her riding habit - in rhythm to her step. She explains her willful
tardiness:

I'm terribly sorry to be late. I had trouble with the colt....So
sorry, but you know, when a colt gets high-handed, teach him his manners
right now or ruin him.

Ladies react to Julie's vibrant impulsiveness and tempestuousness: "I declare!
Hope I'm broad-minded but I must say!...I always say 'You spare the rod
and you spoil the child!'" Buck Cantrell, one of the guests, proposes an
incomplete toast to his ex-girlfriend Julie:

Buck: To the very good health of the future, Ms. Dillard.
Julie: Buck! Aren't you gonna wish me happiness too?
Buck: What's the use? You won't get it. Marryin' a traitor and goin' up North.
Julie: Pres is a banker, not a traitor. I'll thank ya to remember that.
Buck: I keep forgettin' there's a difference, but you won't like it in the
North, Miss Julie...
Julie: I'll be happy anywhere Pres is.
Buck: You won't like it up North.

Julie's new fiancee Preston Dillard, son of a wealthy banking
family, has been detained from attending the festivities while engaged
in an important business conference with the directors of the investments
and exchange firm of Dillard and Sons - "a venerable institution, a financial colossus with
branches in New York, Boston, London, and Paris." In the meeting, Preston
expresses his belief that the expansion of Northern railroad lines and rail
freight shipments are bypassing the South:

...and New Orleans is missing the parade...Yankee sharpers are
smart enough to turn the flow of traffic around. The railroads are gettin'
it...Gentlemen, I have here the figures on the decline in river freight.
These figures don't lie...Now I'm not tryin' to put the bank into a ten
million dollar proposition without knowin' what I'm talkin' about. I haven't
spent six months gettin' these figures together for my album. The least
you could do...

Pres keeps Julie waiting in her carriage outside the bank,
although she is confident that she has him trained and obedient to her
will: "I've been
trainin' him for years." Furious and neurotic, she stomps into the bank
and interrupts the meeting, demanding that he fulfill his promise of accompanying
her to a dress-fitting for her ball dress for the great Olympus debutante
ball to be held the following evening. When he refuses, arguing that he
is struggling and "having the fight of my life," she proceeds to the French
costume-fitters without him.

At Mme. Poulard's (Ann Codee), Julie is sitting on a stool
trapped within a wide, hoop-skirt frame while trying on a white crinoline
dress in front of a mirror. Exasperated by the uncomfortable, unstylish
dress - and to spite Preston, she defiantly commands to have the white
dress removed. In her underwear, exposed from both sides by the mirror,
she insists on wearing and flaunting herself in a "saucy" and "vulgar" red
dress, customarily worn by a demi-mondaine -
an "infamous Vickers woman" - rather than the traditional virginal, pristine
white gowns worn by unmarried women:

Aunt Belle: Pres has always loved you in white...If he isn't simply
bowled over by it, I won't know what to think.
Julie: (speaking to an assistant who carries off a red dress) Wait a minute.
Bring that over here. (She holds the dress up to herself) Saucy, isn't it?
Aunt Belle: And vulgar.
Julie: Yes, isn't it? Come on, get me out of this.
Aunt Belle: Julie, what are you doing?
If it fits me, I'm gonna wear it to the Olympus Ball.
Aunt Belle: A red dress to the Olympus Ball? Why, you're out of your senses.
Julie: ...Mary Vickers couldn't possibly do it justice.
Aunt Belle: Child, you're out of your mind. You know you can't wear red to
the Olympus Ball.
Julie: Can't I? I'm goin' to. This is 1852, dumplin,' 1852. Not the Dark Ages.
Girls don't have to simp around in white just because they're not married.
Aunt Belle: In New Orleans they do. Julie, you'd insult every woman on the
floor.
Mme. Poulard: Mademoiselle, your aunt - she's right. Look how beautiful this
dress is.
Julie: Will you kindly get me out of this? (She removes the white dress)
Aunt Belle: Julie, you can't be serious!
Julie: Never more serious in my life.
Aunt Belle: But Julie, think of Pres.
Julie: That's just exactly what I am thinkin' of.

At the Bogardus' mansion, the General advises Preston that
Julie, with whom he had a "fuss" at the bank, is "high-headed and willful. Son? If you
just come to realize it, what she needs is a firm hand." When fickle-minded
Julie insists on remaining in her upstairs room rather than coming down
to greet Preston in the parlor, he marches up to her boudoir door wielding
a walking stick. While knocking repeatedly, she teases him. As her hair
is being pinned up by her black maid-servant Zette (Theresa Harris), she
deliberately stalls answering to him. In front of a mirror which displays
her image in three panels, she reddens her cheeks and finally responds: "Who
is it?" When his patience
has been tried to the breaking point, she opens the door and coyly flirts
with him:

Julie: Why Pres! Bangin' on a ladies' door. I'm scandalized at
you. Well, did you come up here just to stand there?
Preston: Julie, how long must we go on like this?
Julie: Like what, Pres?
Preston: Fightin', fussin' all the time, like a couple of children.
Julie: Why do you treat me like a child?
Preston: Because you act like one. A spoiled one.
Julie: You used to say you liked me like that once. You never wanted me to
change. Remember?
Preston: Julie. (He lays aside the cane and kisses her)
Julie: Why Pres! In a lady's bedroom. Now you'll have to marry me.
Preston: What do you figure I aim to do?
Julie: Then kiss me again.

Having softened him up, she shows off her shocking red dress laid out on
her chair, with the obvious intention of scorning convention and publicly
embarrassing the conservative banker. Pres immediately objects to her wearing
a non-customary gown to the chaste, social event of the year:

Preston: For the Olympus Ball?
Julie: Uh, huh. Isn't it lovely?
Preston: Julie, it's red!
Julie: It's gorgeously red.
Preston: But you can't wear red to the Olympus Ball!
Julie: Why not?
Preston: You never saw an unmarried girl in anything but white!
Julie: Then you're gonna see one tomorrow night.
Preston: Julie! You can't be serious.
Julie: Are you afraid somebody will take me for one of those girls from Gallatan
Street?
Preston: Julie!
Julie: Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot I'm a child. I'm not supposed to know about
things like Gallatan Street. I'm just supposed to flutter around in white.
Preston: You're supposed to know better than to scandalize the whole town.
Julie: It might be bad for the bank. Of course. Will you please hold another
director's meeting and ask 'em to decide what I can wear?
Preston: Julie, for heaven's sake, will you be reasonable?
Julie: Were you reasonable this afternoon?
Preston: So that's it. You're just nursin' a spite. Well, I'm not gonna let
ya. You made your point. For once, you're gonna do as I say. I'm callin' for
you tomorrow night at ten and you're gonna be dressed properly for the ball
in white.
Julie: Am I? Oh, but of course Preston, if you say so.
Preston: Don't be absurd. Your own good sense will say so.
Julie: And if it doesn't?
Preston: Then, my sweet, you and I will sit at home quietly with our embroidery.
(He kisses her goodbye) Goodnight. Tomorrow night at ten.
Julie: Oh Preston, you forgot your stick.
Preston: So I did. I forgot to use it, too.
Julie: So you did.

After Preston leaves, Julie sends a note via Zette to Buck
Cantrell, inviting him to pick her up the following evening. On his arrival,
Julie asks about his duel with Lautruc to defend her honor: "Is it true you killed him?" He
admits: "It just looked like a busted hip to me." And he admires her sinful,
scarlet dress: "Are you all dressed up for a hog killing?" But when he
realizes she wants him to escort her to the Olympus Ball in a red
dress to arouse Pres' jealousy (a symbol of her sexual recklessness),
he declines, claiming that Southern manners wouldn't allow it:

Buck: You had a set-to with Pres?
Julie: Oh, I'd rather not discuss it.
Buck: Yes, I'd better, 'cause Pres isn't gonna like it.
Julie: What's the matter, Buck? Afraid Pres would call you out?
Buck: Oh, he'd do that naturally. Can't say I'd blame him much. Where do I
stand, carryin' his lady?
Julie: If I ask you to, isn't that enough?
Buck: Not this time, Miss Julie. I think too much of you to help you do something
you're gonna regret.
Julie: I know exactly what I'm doin'.
Buck: Well, most likely you do but you're wrong. That dress would cause no
end of trouble. Folks would keenly resent you comin' to the ball in it.
Julie: Well, let 'em. They're just petty and narrow-minded.
Buck: No, ma'am. It's just they got rules and they go by 'em, same as you
and I.
Julie: And do you prefer to go by your rules?
Buck: I always have, Miss Julie.
Julie: Then I'm sorry I troubled you.

When Preston arrives at the mansion, he (and Aunt Belle
and the General) are stunned to see her, inappropriately dressed in a bare-shouldered,
flaming red dress. Pig-headed, she challenges her beau to escort her while
ignoring his wishes that she be "properly dressed" according to the social
conventions: